


Sanctuary

by karakael



Category: GaoGaiGar
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6348763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karakael/pseuds/karakael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the whole of 3G stuck in his spaceship, J searches for some much needed solitude. Or something similar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sanctuary

Humans talk too much, J decides after barely a week in their continued presence. 

He intensely dislikes this aspect about them. They prickle at his senses, even the ones who have no stones to power them, always there and present in a way that none of his brothers ever were, a kind of humming dissonance in the back of his mind. 

His brothers appreciated silence. In a chaotic situation, the way the war was in the end, they became eerily quiet, suspending all unnecessary functions in an effort to succeed at their goal.

Humans were the opposite. It seemed as if the needed to talk to get anything done, no matter how dire the situation. So now, with all of them crowded on the J-Arc and frantically doing whatever they could to escape a collapsing universe...they chattered. Ceaselessly. Bad enough that they were everywhere, stashed in every nook of his ship, but their words filled up the space that once had been his sanctuary.

He was no scientist, so there was little he could do to involve himself in their work, leaving that honor to Tomoro. There were scientists and technicians hurrying all over his ship, never staying still, all directed by the ever-present voice that came from the ceiling. Certainly there was some work for him; short trips into the void to collect robots and scraps and other useful remains of the GGG fleet, but those were few and far between and most of the time he was relegated to the sidelines, keeping his temper in check and making sure nothing truly irreversible was done to his vessel. 

So it was several weeks before he realized that, despite the press of humanity around him, he had not seen the one human he didn't mind the presence of.

Renais. The girl-cyborg was surely just as nebulously busy as he was, and yet he had seen her only rarely, catching sight of the cuff of her coat or the flick of her hair disappearing around a corner. And then, more recently...nothing at all.

Cautiously, he opened up his senses, searching for her signature amidst the chaos of heartbeats around him.

Nothing.

Confused, he dampened down his life-sense and extended his Jewel feeling. He felt the ship, the pulses of J-energy all around him, and then the echoes from Guy and Mikoto in the medical bay, still in healing comas, and then the heartbeats of the recovering mechas outside. 

But of Renais? Only echos, ripples from where she had moved hours ago, stirring the currents of J-energy within the ship, fading to nothingness and erasing her presence. Of her Stone, he felt nothing.

He was calling to Tomoro before he fully comprehended the sudden flash of emotions the realization held. Worry was not a familiar feeling for him, but he had become accustomed to it in the months following Arma's escape. Now it was targeted towards the only other active cyborg on the ship, the last person he should be concerned about. And yet...

"Renais?" Tomoro chirped across their private band. "She's in her bunk. Its - " But J was already moving, following the echos in the direction Tomoro indicated. 

"I hope you don't mind that I put aside some space for her." the AI continued as J dodged around scientists and technicians, the echos leading him towards the deck of the ship that held the secondary energy core. 

"The crew bunks in the cargo bays." To anyone else, it would have sounded like a statement, but Tomoro answered it as a question.

"Yeah, but she's not really crew, is she? And I've shuffled so that the Captain's quarters are a meeting room, so its not like she could stay there - by the way, you haven't slept in over a month. Maintenance protocol says..."

But J had come up short, having walked to the end of a corridor, only to find Renais's signature ending at a solid wall.

"?" he sent to Tomoro, interrupting him wordlessly.

"She said she didn't mind no doors." Tomoro said. "But I gave her a window. I know we don't have many, but I remembered some of the things she shared with you, and it didn't seem fair, making her trust me that much." As spoke, the whole ship shifted, the corridor sliding beneath J's feet, returning for a moment to its original triangle shape...and leaving an opening into the tiny room past the wall.

Renais glanced up from her pallet, where one of her guns was carefully spread out, disassembled down to its tiny electronics. "I don't trust _you_ , Tomrro. I trust that my bazooka would fry your wall in three seconds flat." Then, as the AI chirped unhappily, "Hey, J. Come on in. Its a bit tight, but you should fit."

Cautiously, J stepped through the aperture, and felt the ship shift closed behind him. The room was tiny, barely large enough for him to stand straight and crowded by Renais's various weapon racks. But the difference from the rest of the ship could not be more obvious. 

The instant the wall closed there was _silence_. The pure silence of a spaceship at work, quiet humming from the walls but nothing more. Even Renais was quiet, some how sensing he needed the time to just breath for a moment.

He hadn't realized how tense he was until he closed his eyes and let the silence in, let it swallow him whole and wring out the stress of the last month. Inhale, taste the slight tang of recycled air, heated to the right temperature for once. Exhale, let the stress flow out and feel the silence left in its wake.

He opened his eyes, and found Renais hanging the reassembled gun next to him on her rack. She smiled, reached out, and spoke without words to not interrupt the quiet. 

_"I should have known you'd need this as much as I."_

_"When?"_

She sent a memory in response, of being buffeted by the technicians in the medical bay, dodging constantly lest they be burned, the feeling of uselessness as they went about their work and she was left with a burnt-out suit and no one with enough time to fix it.

And then - 

_We needed something to power the weapons._ Tomoro said. 

J blinked, and put out a hand. The triangular far wall was warm to touch, the back of the power circuit that powered the main canons. No one had thought them important enough to get back online, at least until one of the techs figured out a way to use them to escape the system.

Which explained the sound and energy-proof room. It was made from panels pulled away from the canons, a tiny room too small to be used for anything useful, and only remembered by the computer that had reorganized the arc. 

_Nice little sanctuary, huh?_ Renais sent. J now noticed the heavy boots around her legs, effectively chaining her to the floor, pulsing with heat-energy that flowed from her mal-designed body. Of course, the J-Arc was partially powered by heat, making her the perfect battery for whatever system needed that extra push of power. 

_Efficient, right?_ Tomoro explained. _But it was her idea. I wouldn't have..._

"He gave me a window." Renais said aloud, breaking the silence. It was true. The entire back wall looked out on the swirling haze of the collapsing universe. "That's more than anyone else would have done." She shrugged, and then sat down on the bed - another converted power-pad, J realized. "And its quiet back here. Whenever they need me, Tomorro just flexes the corridor, and I'm kept safe from everyone in between."

Efficient. That certainly described the arrangement, J thought. And the tiny quarters were more than comfortable to a Soldato. But...Renais was human.

"You are not...lonely?"

Renais glanced up, and smiled. "You're here now, aren't you? Why would I be?"

\--------------

The bed was just long enough for J to stretch out on, but it was more comfortable to sit, tucked into the nook between the cabinet and the window, his head resting on another cubby above the bunk, with Renais leaning back on his chest. The warm heat of her was as constant as the living silence of the ship, little noises as she disassembled and cleaned her weaponry, the sounds of breathing and the hum of stones and ships, the muffled roar of the universe beyond...

Involuntarily, J's arms tightened around her waist, and he understood why this tiny box could feel free. Sighing, safe, he closed his eyes and finally slept.


End file.
